Journals across the Disciplines

Student writing will not improve by simply increasing the number of writing assignments in a course, adding a term paper, or switching to essay tests. While these changes may be appropriate for some disciplines, they are not for others; in any case, such changes alone will not significantly alter the quality of student writing. Students do need to write often, and in every discipline, but equally important is the kind of writing students are asked to do. Research by James Britton and his colleagues at the University of London suggests that the writing taught in schools today is narrowly conceived. Britton describes writing according to three function categories: transactional, language to get things done-to inform, instruct and persuade; poetic, language as an art medium-poetry and fiction; and expressive, language written for oneself-thinking and speculating on paper.' In looking at two thousand pieces of writing from sixty-five secondary schools, Britton found that 84% of the writing by high school seniors was transactional. Poetic writing accounted for less than 7% of school writing, and expressive less than 4%.2 Few teachers ask their students to write in the ex-